Partners

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) is the parent laboratory for the Learning Technologies Group, and has provided the technology and support resources that have enabled our work in learning technologies. EVL's support for connecting kids with emerging technologies dates back over a quarter century, and has never been stronger. Special thanks to Laboratory Director Tom DeFanti, consistently the strongest supporter of our work, and to colleagues Andy Johnson, Jason Leigh, Maxine Brown, Dana Plepys, Alan Verlo, Patrick Hallihan, Allan Spale, Lance Long, Dan Sandin, Steve Sander, Luc Renambot, Greg Dawe, Laura Wolf, and many other wonderful staff and students.

The OptIPuter project, funded under the National Science Foundation Intormation Technologies Research program, provides domain expertise and personnel to support education research and outreach. Directed by PI Larry Smarr (UCSD), Co-PIs Tom DeFanti and Jason Leigh (UIC), and Project Manager Maxine Brown (UIC), the OptIPuter addresses issues of infrastructure, applications, and collaboration on systems served by optical networks. Scripps Institute of Oceanography seismologist Deborah Kilb served as domain expert for the RoomQuake project.

UIC's Center for the Study of Learning, Instruction, & Teacher Development (LITD) is our partner in Psychology and Education. Susan Goldman and Jim Pellegrino have built an active multi-disciplinary research community around issues of the learning sciences. LITD, which is joining with the UIC Institute for Mathematics and Science Education (IMSE) to form the new Learning Science Research Institute, is also leading an effort to establish a new Learning Sciences graduate program at UIC, which, pending approval by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, is scheduled to come on line in Fall 2007.

The Scientists, KIds, and Teachers (SKIT) project, funded by a National Science Foundation GK-12 grant, has afforded me a rich mix of researchers, practitioners, domain scientists, and students to learn from and to bounce ideas off. Special thanks to UIC colleagues Don Wink, Maria Varelas, Marlynne Nishimura, Phil Wagreich, Stacy Wenzel, Niki Christodoulou, Aixa Alfonso, Roy Plotnick, Josh Radinsky, and Rapheal Guajardo for their fellowship. Here's a blurb from the UIC News about the 2004 summer "kickoff" workshop for new graduate student Fellows.

The Wiley Eyetracking and Cognition Laboratory, led by my colleague and collaborator Jenny Wiley, houses research in cognition surrounding issues including student learning and metacognition.

The University of Chicago's Center for Urban School Improvement (CUSI) Information Infrastructure Systems (IIS) Project, led by Tony Bryk (now at Stanford University), focuses on the design of technologies to support learning and teaching in schools where students and teachers enjoy 1-to-1 computing resources in the form of laptop computers. This invigorating group of researchers includes Louis Gomez and Phil Herman (Northwestern University), Nichole Pinkard and Denise Nacu (University of Chicago), and Kim Gomez (UIC), among others.

UIC's Great Cities Institute is a home for scholarship including a broad range of research into issues of importance to major urban areas. They were kind enough to name me a Great Cities Scholar for the 2006-2007 academic year.

Abraham Lincoln Elementary School has been our design and implementation partner since 1997. We express our deep appreciation to Carol Dudzik, Cathy Hamilton, Sheila Carter, Diane Conmy, Tim Halter, Marilyn Rothstein, Joanna Peterson, Victor Baez, Betty Smitherman, Kevin Harris, Gloria Arreola, Kathy Hayes, Frank LoCoco, Terry Bradford, Jarvia Thomas, Kathy Wiedow, Christine Rummel, Kathy Madura, Paul Jacobson, Jan Barrick, Janet Miller, Rosa Aureola, Jose Plaza, Diane West, and all of the kids "up at Lincoln." My apologies to anyone I missed (and please tell me)!

Galileo Scholastic Academy of Math and Science is a K-8 Chicago Public School where we work with teacher Jeff Maharry, the kind of energetic, inquiring science teacher you'd want your kids to have in middle school.

The National Science Foundation has provided financial support for this work under grants from the Information Technology Research, GK-12, RET, CLT, and CISE Research Instrumentation and Research Resources programs. The opinions expressed in these pages, however, are solely those of the author (Tom Moher), and are not intended to imply, suggest, or claim an endorsement of their content by the National Science Foundation.